The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1887-03-19

Louisiana, who is acquainted with the
facts, venture to say that it did 7 Gen.
Never was not nominated. Hence,
either the story that the bosses had
sold him the nomination was false, or
the Democratic masses were so strong
" represented in the convention that
the bosses could not "dcliver the
goods" in either event every peg
was knocked from under the Hunt
movement, and its leaders stood forth
as boilers, pure and simple. They
had not even as pretext for their
bolt the opportunity to say that the
convention had nominated ''ring"
man. Our venerable and honored fell
Iow-citizeu, Louis St. Martin, received
the nomination and received it in spite
Of himself. The nominee had been
lifelong Democrat without a flaw or
blemish in his record. He was an
anti-ring man when Mr.. Hunt received
'tthe ring" nomination for Congress.
He was an earnest supporter of the
lamented Ogden in the contest between
that gentleman and Gov. McEnery. A
truer Democrat, more stainless gen.
tleman, public man more hostile to
ringism could not have been selected
in the State of Louisiana. Such was
the Democrat whose election Governor
Nichols sought to defeat, and, in OPP
posing whom, he made the celebrated
remark that he would unite with any
party or with men Of any race or color
to defeat "the ring" And let us here
remark that, if the convention which
nominated st. Martin was manipulated
by bosses, the head boss, the king of
the bosses, is now an ardent supporter
of the Ex-Governor himself
But the worst feature of this bolt
remains to be told. The Republicans
were prompt to "cateh on" to SO ex-
collent an opportunity to split and
defeat the Democratic party (; and,
hence, we find ex-Goy. Warmoth,
Col. Jim Lewis and other prominent
joining with the Reform
Democracy" under the leadership of
Mr.. Kernochan, Gov. Nichols and
others, in a most earnest and enthusi-
astic effort to defeat the nominee of
tho regular party.
1t would occupy several columns to |
recall all the events of this extraordi- |
nary canvass. The most striking one,
however, was the combination of the
under Warmoth with the
"Reform Democracy to disfranchise
1000 Democratic voters. Mr.. George |
Norton at the time was the Federal
and of course entered
heartily INTO this scheme. Had the
conspiracy been successful it would
have defeated Col. St. Martin, and
that was what tho "Reform Democ-
racy" wanted to do, and it would have
probably lost Louisiana to Cleveland, 7
and that was what Warmoth, Norton
and the Republicans generally we're
aiming at.
We have no space to give the de-
tails of that extraordinary piece of
campaigning work. Suffice it to say,
the old sewing machine trick of the
Radicals was eclipsed by it, and that
it was so atrocious an outrage that the
Federal Radical Judge, Don A. Par
dee, refused to be party to it and
squelched it from the bench,
We have not sought to revive this
subject with tho view of challenging
any mans Democracy, Or of awakening
the bitterness of long past campaign.
But since the attitude of the actors
in that episode is becoming subject
Of discussion and interest, we feel 1t to
DO our duty, in response to the request
9f our correspondent, to set the facts
,quarely before the people, and We
challenge any one to dispute the gen.
sral accuracy of the facts as herein
set forth.